A lot of things that I’ve been faced with lately are things that I don't particularly like, but I’ve been learning to love. The month of August isn’t my favorite month of all time. The hot sticky heat, the return to school and life after a long bittersweet summer, and headaches that come from the sun that dominates the high noon hour gets to me. It’s a month that’s too heavy, too thick with sweat. However, in this past year, I learned to love the clingy month. I peaked around its corners and crawled under it’s edged to see what it really was about. What I found were sweet innocents.
It’s the same thing that I’m doing now, with this harsh January (I guess it’s now February; the year is flying by, isn’t it?) and the dry, sucking cold is getting the best of me and I can’t seem to find anything I love about it. It’s made my throat and muscles tense, tight, and red. It keeps me bundled up in thick coats and too heavy boots. I have to walk for blocks out in the open, with the dry ice of air being sucked into my nose and into my lungs. I can’t wait until it warms up a little and I can drive with my windows rolled down.
This is one of those things though, one of those things that I hate but that I’m learning to love.
Learning to love takes some time and endurance. It doesn’t just happen overnight. When you get into a commitment to learning to love something, you’re in it for the whole nine yards. You’re stuck and you can’t get out until you see the beauty in what’s there. The words eh, kinda, maybe, and sometimes don’t count. You have to give it you're all.
So, in light of learning to love a season — a dry cold season that has gotten the best of me and I can see it taking a long time to wait and see if I can actually coup with trying to figure this winter enjoyment thing out — here’s a list of things that I’ve learned that are perks, or aspects that I’ve paid attention to and can make little spots for in my spring longing heart:
Thick scarves, long scarfs, windy scarfs around your neck — the ones that you can bury your noise down in to keep it warm.
Red noises —- when one comes in from the icy air and the warmth relieves them, and their noise gets red from the temperature change.
Ice paintings on my car windows in the morning — they are so pretty I almost don’t want to scrap them off.
Warm cups of hot coffee & tea.
Good smelling hand lotion that you get to carry around in your bag to keep your hand from feeling chapped, but also makes you smell good.
Good conversation — not that this can’t happen during other times of the year, but there is just something about being in a warm place with the cold hugging it’s windows, coats off hanging on the back of chairs and warms drinks caressed in hands, conversations that unfold in this manner seem to have more meaning and truth behind them.
And last but definitely not least, warm homemade meals — soup and bread and numerous other things can only be appreciated enough in the confinements of a draft house on a chilly winters night.
(list to be continued)
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